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By Antonio M. Claparols, President,
Ecological Society of the Philippines
The Philippine environment, dubbed a mega
biodiversity country, is in danger as true as the saying goes. Our
country once blessed with an abundant, healthy environment and
balanced ecology is now in the threshold of an irreversible
ecological meltdown.
Our forests are nearly gone and yet wanton
logging goes on unabated with the knowledge of the government.
Millions of species have gone extinct even before they were
discovered and identified. Our water resources are running out as
our forests continue to vanish. The air that we breathe is so
polluted that with every breath we take— we inhale poison, toxic
causing us to die slowly. Air and water are God-given resources, and
not owned by anyone. Like the oceans, they are part of the Global
Commons—owned by no one, but by all. Air has increased carbon
dioxide content from 266 ppm (part per million) nearly 50 years ago
to over 377 ppm today and it’s getting worse.
The Philippines is also part of the Coral
triangle and considered to be the world’s center of marine
biodiversity. Our marine resources are being destroyed due to the
“waste basket” theory that the seas and oceans are the dumpsites
of the world’s waste.
We all know that the seas are the life of the
earth. They harbor countless species that complement our
biodiversity and life support system. Our coral reefs and mangrove
swamps are vanishing despite years of action and advocacies. These
are the food chain and without them, all of us today will all suffer
a catastrophic fate.
And so will the generations to come.
Our population continues to grow and with it,
poverty is on the rise. We are a country so rich and yet so poor.
Why do we ask? Is it a lack of awareness, is it ignorance or is it
greed?
We feel that greed is the cause of destruction
of our rich biodiversity.
Our government lacks the responsible actions and
the political will necessary to protect our people and the
environment. The economic order that they use is destroying us.
We need to change all these.
We need to repudiate loans that are marred by
fraud, reduce our foreign debt and bring the culprits to the
international courts. We need to create a whole new system that will
not only enhance biodiversity but also result in eradicating poverty
and giving us what is embedded in the constitution.
The right to a clean and healthy environment.
This is our right and we must demand for
it—the outright violations of environmental laws on clean air,
water, marine, forest, agriculture and now the dumping of toxic
wastes and the selling of our patrimony to the extractive industries
and bilateral trade.
This is a crime against humanity. It must be
stopped.
Our country is rich; we can feed our population.
We can be self-sufficient with our Natural Capital. We must think of
ourselves first and protect, enhance and conserve our biodiversity
for us and for future generations. After all, only Filipinos will
speak for the Philippines.
We must not allow ourselves to be used and
abused. We want food, sovereignty, clean water and air. We want a
healthy environment for our people. If we need to die for the cause
then so be it.
At least we can say that we did what we had to
do. Personally, I see that the earth’s ecosystems will collapse in
the next 10 years. We have seen the ice melting in the Artic.
We have seen the Extractive Industry Review of
Dr. Emil Salim and the World Bank stating that mining will only make
the poor poorer.
We have seen the GMO ban adopted by Switzerland
and World Conservation Union (IUCN). We have heard Tony Blair call
on the world to take action on global warming after the economic and
environmental figures lost were quantified.
We have seen the ecosystem’s benefits, which
give us life. The Millennium Ecosystem benefits provide us more than
all the world’s gross domestic products (GDPs) put together.
Once an ecosystem is destroyed, it cannot be
replaced. We cannot eat the gold that is extracted nor drink the
waste that it gives. But we can eat, drink and survive with our rich
biodiversity. Let us conserve mother earth’s natural capital.
We have seen our communities suffer from
landslides, flashfloods. And lives have been senselessly lost.
What are we waiting for? Let us ask ourselves.
A tsunami to strike Manila, or more people to
die of starvation and diseases?
Time is running out. The earth is dying.
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